


From the Journals of Lord John Gray

by twistedchick



Category: Outlander - Diana Gabaldon
Genre: Broken Engagement, Chess, Multi, Yuletide, kiss
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2010-06-29
Updated: 2010-06-29
Packaged: 2017-10-10 07:55:47
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,181
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/97406
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/twistedchick/pseuds/twistedchick
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Lord John is thankful for his broken engagement, and his work is appreciated.</p>
            </blockquote>





	From the Journals of Lord John Gray

**Author's Note:**

  * For [E.E. Beck](https://archiveofourown.org/gifts?recipient=E.E.+Beck).



At River Run, North Carolina Colony, 1770

I am no longer engaged to Brianna Fraser, thanks be to God. Jamie Fraser and his wife Claire, her parents, arrived today with word of Roger MacKenzie, to whom she is handfast. This is a custom of the Scots, marriage for a year and a day when no clergy are available. As I am governor of Virginia, not North Carolina, the legality of the arrangement is not my affair. I may thus rejoice in the preservation of my life from her father's almost certain upset.

Claire came to see me to inquire into my health. It is not the place of a gentleman to inquire into a lady's age, but if I did not know her approximate age by adding up the number of years since we first met before Prestonpans, I would think her several years younger than myself. Her hair is the color of dark hickory wood, grained with only a little silver and her form appears untouched by childbearing even when covered in outlandish buckskins. She is, however, the second boldest woman I have ever encountered -- my former fiance being the first. She took it upon herself to open my nightshirt, which in any other woman I would consider the broadest invitation to lechery, but instead she rolled a piece of parchment and put one end to my chest and the other to her ear. I hope that the gurglings of my inward organs entertained her. She told me I would heal in good time from the head injury I sustained while engaged to her daughter. She also returned the ring I gave to Brianna, with her thanks, and said her husband would be up later to thank me as well.

That was the ring my dear Hector gave me, so many years ago, before he died at Culloden. I believe he would have approved of my using it to protect Brianna from public calumny; he was ever concerned for my wellbeing and for that of others. The ring is back on my finger now, where it will stay. It seems to shine a little more brightly from having been worn by a Fraser.

I attempted to read for a short time, but my eyes feel somewhat weak, though Claire assures me they too will mend. After I laid aside the Memoirs of Marcus Aurelius, I must have fallen asleep, for I woke when the girl Phaedre lit the candles across the room in the evening.

***

After breakfast in bed, I arose and with the aid of a servant dressed and went downstairs to the library, meaning to return Marcus Aurelius and seek instead Pliny or Ovid, my mind wishing distraction rather than edification.

Perhaps Claire was correct and I should have stayed abed a day or two longer, as my knees felt weak with the exertion of the stairs. The library door stuck when I pushed on it, and I felt myself wobble although I walked with the aid of Hector Cameron's old cane, lent me by Jocasta, ever the gracious hostess. Before I could fall, large hands caught me and directed me to a chair by the window.

"Should ye not be abed, John? Your knees are aquake."

My heart jumped. I have touched James Fraser so seldom, been touched by him even fewer times, yet the feel of his hand upon me sent lightning through my veins.

"I thought I was well enough to resume polite company, if it is not strenuous," I said. Looking up, it seemed a long way to reach his face. "Much as I esteem your friendship, and that of your family, it can be a trifle exhausting."

"And well I know it." Jamie sat down in the chair across from me, with a small table between us. "Ye know I am in your debt, John."

The hairs on the back of my neck twitched. It felt as if they were sending an almost inaudible vibration through the plate that had been inserted into my skull. "It was the greatest pleasure to be of service," I said, with almost complete truth. I sketched a brief seated bow toward him.

Jamie made one of those Scottish sounds, like a suppressed snort. "I ken ye well, John, after all these years." He waved a large hand in the direction of my legs. "I half expected that cloth to be worn through at the knees with praying for our return, Claire's and mine." His eyes crinkled at the corners, with that smile I have thought devilishly attractive since I first met him, though at our first encounter I had thought it only devilish.

"I'll not deny I sent up prayers for your safety, or that I am relieved they were heard," I said lightly, "but I did not pray for deliverance from an alliance with your daughter, and if we should have come to that pass I would have cherished her for herself."

Jamie's expression shifted, his eyes hooded, then open again as if naught could be hidden. "Even as you are, and I am?"

Even as I have loved him all these years, and he has felt for me only friendship and nothing more.

"She is her mother's child as well, but I suspect her forcefulness of personality comes from you."

"Nay so much as ye may think. Claire' can be a fair stubborn woman, in her way." Jamie shifted in the chair, his hand on his knee twitching a little. I did not know the tale of how that hand came to be so injured, or how it was that he was still able to use it; I have seen men with far less serious injuries lose their entire limbs. If Claire was the reason he still had that hand, her skill as a physician must be greater than any other I've ever seen.

Jamie cleared his throat. "But we stray frae the subject, John. So greatly am I indebted to ye, I know not where to begin. Ye saved my daughter from scandal and ill repute these past months, but I fear I canna begin to repay ye in any meaningful way."

His blue eyes shifted away from me and back.

I blinked. Was he repeating the offer he had made when I told him I would care for Willie, his illegitimate English son, as if he were my own? He had offered me his body then, though his heart was elsewhere, and he would have lived up to the bargain.

"It was the action of a friend, that's all. Shall we have a game of chess?"

His face cleared only a little, but he obliged me by moving the marble chessboard with its carved pieces from the other window to where we sat. "For what stakes?"

I hesitated. "If it is proper for me to name the stakes, then let it be for a kiss."

Jamie's shoulders relaxed. "Aye. I can bear that cost. And if ye lose?"

"Set the forfeit and I will pay it." My head felt a bit light, though not so much as after two bottles of that wretched champagne that His Majesty had offered me before I left London.

"In that case, tell me all ye can of Willie, if ye please." His voice softened. "I dearly love to hear of the lad."

I nodded. He had given me white; I made the first move.

I had chosen chess not only because I had always enjoyed playing a well-matched game, but also because it provided an escape for him from the obligation he had expressed, if he wished it. But that seemed not to be a consideration for him. He played as cleverly and thoughtfully as ever, and with greater skill. As I considered whether to advance the knight or the bishop into the sixth rank, I realized this was one of the longest and hardest-fought contests we had ever played.

"Where is your wife this morning?"

"Claire?" He captured my bishop with his queen. "With Bree, talkin' of women's things, I suppose. Did ye need her to see to your head?"

"No, it's well enough. She has remarkable skills as a healer." I threatened his queen with a rook that was covered by my own knight. "I've seen none like her, anywhere I've been."

"She has her own ideas, I give ye, and they mostly work well." Jamie's eyes glinted. He put a pawn into play, nowhere near the queen. What could he gain from that? Nothing I could see.

I took the queen, and his knight covered my rook. I advanced a pawn, and his bishop took the knight. In six more moves I would know what he intended.

Stalemate? Or victory? In two moves, it could go either way.

He tipped over his king, and his deep blue eyes met mine. I felt as if my life hung in the balance of the pendulum clock, swishing in the hall outside. "You need not feel --"

"I pay my debts, John, as ye ken well, but I'd be obliged if ye'd stand. My back aches a wee bit from sleepin' on tree roots the last month."

I stood, steadying myself with one hand on the table and one on Hector Cameron's stick until I felt solid. He put both hands on my shoulders and turned me toward him.

Hector had been a man of my own size; I realized as we stood there that I was of Claire's height, with him towering above me well over a foot. Had I married Brianna, she would have loomed above me the same distance. A foolish giggle choked in my throat.

"This is for your care for Willie." His lips brushed my forehead and the touch burned. "This, for your concern for Claire." He kissed my left cheek; another ember sparked. "This, for your friendship for me, John." My right cheek met his lips. "And this is for your tender concern for the daughter of my heart." His lips met mine, and stayed, softening a little.

I made no advance upon him; this time I was being kissed, firmly and sincerely, by someone who could easily have torn me in half if he had wished. I'd more than half expected him to consider such action if the engagement had shown any sign of becoming a marriage. But he wrapped his arms around me and made the kiss real, deeper, and I let myself be kissed without restraint.

He stepped back and bowed deeply toward me, and I bowed in return, my entire body thrumming as if it were a harp plucked by a master harper. "Your very good servant, sir," I said.

The door opened behind Jamie to admit Claire, clad this day in a blue dress and, as usual, without a cap, her hair falling just to her shoulders. "I thought I'd find you here, Jamie ... John? Are you well?" She glanced up at her husband. "Have you been wearing his lordship out, Jamie?"

"I have done nothing of the sort," he protested, though his eyes sparkled. "Merely a game or two of chess, and thanking him for takin' care of Bree, when we couldna be here."

Her golden eyes went from him to me, and I felt as if she were walking into my mind, the last few minutes' activities as plain to her as if she'd been present. It is an extraordinary feeling to be so nakedly known; I have found few who could comprehend so much in such a short time.

"Then I think I'd better thank you also, since you weren't well enough for such things yesterday." Claire stepped between me and her husband, and put her arms around me in an embrace. "I'm most grateful, John. I cannot tell you how grateful." And her lips brushed mine as well, though for nowhere near as long.

When she drew back I knew she could feel my body's reaction, and I felt a telltale blush rise, but she gave me a small smile. "Should we name the baby after you?"

"Good God, no," I protested, at the same time that Jamie expostulated in some Scots phrase that spluttered out too quickly for me to comprehend it. "I -- um -- er -- there's no need -- shouldn't its mother decide its name?"

Jamie chuckled. "I suspect if 'tis a lad, the babe might carry John as one of its names. But I suspect we are tiring ye. Sit ye back down, man, and I'll call for some tea."

I sat again, feeling the most extraordinary sensation -- as if the touch of her lips had cooled but not extinguished the heat I had felt from his. I had heard the Scots at Wentworth speak of 'smooring' the fire for the night, banking it to stay warm without flames; this was how it felt, this warm glow within.

"Actually, I believe we were on the way to a stalemate, when you lost," I said. "I'd be pleased to tell you something of young Willie's adventures when the tea arrives, if you wish. "

**Author's Note:**

> Written for E.E. Beck in the Yuletide 2005 challenge.


End file.
